Lewis is “dead-on” with this collection of “gravely humorous verses.” From school principal to bully, food critic to school cafeteria lady, underwear salesman to soccer player, these “crypt-ic” rhyming quips about the untimely demise of 22 people are wittily morbid and irreverent. The devilishly deadpan, acrylic paintings raise the dead to a higher humor level, infusing liveliness into the scenes and animating the hearse verse with visual puns. For example, six people clad only in black underwear, socks and shoes stand around a photo of the “Underwear Salesman: Our grief / Was brief.” Clever endpapers of tombstones for each of the deceased carry out the serio-comic style. Some poems are a bit of a stretch, but nevermind, kids will love the grim-reaper humor. The seven lines describing the pointed end of the “BOOK EDITOR” are illustrated with a bespectacled woman entombed in a casket shaped like an exclamation point with an open book lying on top. “Miss Spelling’s / Exclamation points / Were myriad!!! / She lived on / The margin. / And died. / Period.” The end. (Picture book/poetry. 6-10)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-7636-1837-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2006
Categories: CHILDREN'S POETRY | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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Brown introduces a smart, young protagonist with a multicultural background in this series opener for chapter-book readers.
Second-grader Lola Levine is half-Peruvian and half-Jewish; she is a skilled soccer player, a persuasive writer, and aspires to own a cat in the near future should her parents concede. During a friendly recess soccer match, Lola, playing goalie, defends an incoming ball by coming out of her box and accidentally fouls a classmate. And so Lola acquires the rhyming nickname Mean Lola Levine. Through Lola’s first-person narration, readers see clearly how her savvy and creativity come from her family: Dad, who paints, Mom, who writes, and a fireball younger brother. She also wears her bicultural identity easily. In her narration, her letters to her friends, and dialogue, Lola easily inserts such words as diario, tía, bubbe, and shalom. For dinner, the family eats matzo ball soup, Peruvian chicken, and flan. Interspersed throughout the story are references to all-star soccer athletes, from Brazilian master Pelé to Mia Hamm, Briana Scurry, and David Beckham. Dominguez’s black-and-white illustrations are cheery and appealing, depicting a long-haired Caucasian father and dark-skinned, black-haired mother. Typefaces that emulate penmanship appropriately differ from character to character: Lola’s is small and clean, her mother’s is tall and slanted, while Juan’s, the injured classmate, is sloppy and lacks finesse.
Celebrate a truly accepting multicultural character. (Fiction. 6-10)Pub Date: Nov. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-316-25836-4
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2015
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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A long-running series reaches its closing chapters.
Having, as Kline notes in her warm valedictory acknowledgements, taken 30 years to get through second and third grade, Harry Spooger is overdue to move on—but not just into fourth grade, it turns out, as his family is moving to another town as soon as the school year ends. The news leaves his best friend, narrator “Dougo,” devastated…particularly as Harry doesn’t seem all that fussed about it. With series fans in mind, the author takes Harry through a sort of last-day-of-school farewell tour. From his desk he pulls a burned hot dog and other items that featured in past episodes, says goodbye to Song Lee and other classmates, and even (for the first time ever) leads Doug and readers into his house and memento-strewn room for further reminiscing. Of course, Harry isn’t as blasé about the move as he pretends, and eyes aren’t exactly dry when he departs. But hardly is he out of sight before Doug is meeting Mohammad, a new neighbor from Syria who (along with further diversifying a cast that began as mostly white but has become increasingly multiethnic over the years) will also be starting fourth grade at summer’s end, and planning a written account of his “horrible” buddy’s exploits. Finished illustrations not seen.
A fitting farewell, still funny, acute, and positive in its view of human nature even in its 37th episode. (Fiction. 7-9)Pub Date: Nov. 27, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-451-47963-1
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 17, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2018
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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